Kid and Teen Collectors

[dysonman1]

As far as the kid's collections - they can be quite large. The 12 year old who has his entire family drive 4 hours so his birthday party can be in the 1950's room of the Vacuum Cleaner Museum, has about 60 machines I believe. I gave him a Kirby Omega one year, and with his birthday money he bought a brand new Simplicity Wonder canister last year.

Most of the little kids (6, 7, or 8 years old) have vacs they've been given by family members, or machines they talked their parents into buying for them (from thrift stores, etc.) One kid, 6 years old, wanted a Windsor Sensor so bad. Just so happened I had one that I sold his mom for $100 (a good price). Turns out he wanted one because he saw one at the hotel they stayed at, talked to the maid about it, and decided that would be his next machine. Some of these kids are really shy, and others are really NOT shy about what they want. MOST only know modern vacuums, almost all love Sharks and Dysons (but they don't know any better yet).

So that's what the Museum does. It exposes them to all kinds of vacs they will probably never see again. I take time to shown them the REALLY COOL machines of the past such as the Lux LX, the Rexair, the Air-Way Twin Motor upright, etc. As a former child collector myself, I see myself in "SOME" of them so I take as much time as I need with them. Some of the parents have been joys - the kind of parents we ALL would have wanted. A few times, the parents let the kid run wild - to which I put my foot down immediately. After all, we cannot call up Hoover in China and ask them for a new part for a 1926 model 700.

 

[super-sweeper]

Nice try, Calem! I've been dodging that number ever since I got it off the wall! 

 


"But they don't know better yet", love it lol! Show them the light! 

We definitely can't call Hoover for a 1926 700, but it would be fun to hear their confusion 

 


While I hope you don't, do you have any museum horror stories?

 

[floor-a-matic]

Or U can call The Time at 777-9311

 

[s31463221]

Reply #30

Super-Sweeper, a few years ago, I contacted Hoover via email regarding a Model 300 Special I had. Now, I knew good and well they wouldn't know a thing about what I was referring to, but I wanted to have a little fun anyway. The person who responded to me was very nice, but he explained that they didn't have records going back that far on the machines, but (I suppose as a consolation prize) he did email me a copy of a Model 31 Convertible manual! Oh well, got to have a little fun when you can!

I too was a kid collector, in fact my first machine was a late 70's Electrolux Super J. I absolutely wore that old vacuum out, in fact, I was using it when the motor locked up on me and it began belching out smoke all over the place! When it stopped smoking, and my nerves settled from the surprise, I ended up sitting down with some tools and completely dismantling that cleaner....I wish I could say I was able to put it back together, but I was little at that point so it didn't happen, BUT it gave me an insight into just how those things worked, and a desire to continue collecting and repairing them.

 

[caligula]

Too bad you didn't contact the Hoover Historical Center, as they would have known all about the model 300, since it was a 'special' Hoover.

This is the problem many collectors have, not knowing who to contact with a question. In fact that's how the VCCC was created. In 1980 I went to the Historical Center, and in late 81 John Lucia contacted Hoover about models 150, and 700. Hoover had no information, or so they told John, so Stacy Krammes, the director of the Historical center sent John's letter to me. The interesting thing here, was that the data I sent John came from the paperwork Stacy gave me in 1980.

That was the connection with John Lucia, and more important, I had a person to share my information with.

As I've stated several times, it was because of our sharing data that we met in the September 0f 82, and went to Hoover together. And the result of course was the birth of the VCCC.

The point is that in most cases the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. Another factor is that most vacuum cleaner companies back then were not interested in history, they were interested only in the next sale. In fact, Hoover was the only company who took us seriously.